Sheshbazzar

The transition of the term would be a natural consequence of a religious movement that condemned and so and 'demoised' all opposition.
The same thing happened to the word pagan which under Christian influences morphed from the simple meaning of being unsophisticated and rural, a 'country bumpkin', into a pejorative against anyone who did not identify them-self as being Christian.
A pejorative that in that heated religious climate could easily cost one their political rights, their property, their right to practice a trade or earn a living, or even their life.
Those deemed to be 'demon's' or "possessed' by a demon", or were designated as 'pagans' by authorities of the Church, were singled out for 'special treatment'.

Chili

I think that the real problem here is that daimon has been subverted to daimonion in absense of the effeminate that so only can bring the old earth images about in exchange for the celestial they seek.

The effeminate they called Mary and crowned her queen of heaven on earth to be the infinite source of Wisdom and wrote a whole Litany about Her without one word to Jesus ever as Apostolos himself. In evidence they left him hanging there as the agent that we need to be the thief, and only be the thief to do the dirty work for them with no credentials about him otherwise, but needed just the same, or else logos itself would be defiled.

Iskander

Hi mountainman
Widening the search
The following extract from Stanford reads as Christian; one god that is remote , good and immaterial and another one bad . Matter is the original sin, lol!
The perfect god needs a lesser immaterial entity to communicate with matter, Matter is by its nature impure and unacceptable to the immaterial god. Filtering the Jewish legend through the ‘Plutarchian’ modifier would produce Christianity, a man-god of some sort and the toleration of matter by the perfect god as well as the devil .

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/

4.1 First Principles

Jeffrey Gibson

Objections? Have a look at the use of δαιμόνιον, ου, τό (substant. neut. of the adj. δαιμόνιος) to mean "demon, evil spirit" by Plato himself at Symp. 23 p. 202e πᾶν τὸ δαιμόνιον μεταξύ ἐστι θεοῦ τε καὶ θνητοῦ; as well as by the 3rd century BCE writer Chrysippus [Stoic. II 338] δ. φαῦλα; by Plutarch., Dio 2, 3 φαῦλ. δ., Mor. 267ff; in the Greek Magical Papyri; PGM 4, 3081; 5, 120; 165; 170; PGM 4, 3038; 3065; 3075 -- where prescriptions are given against δαιμονῶντες, δαιμονιζόμενοι, δαιμονιόπληκτοι and δαιμονοτάκται); in Enoch 19, 1; in the lead tablet fr. Hadrumetum [Dssm., B 26, 35 (BS 271ff)]; and by Josephus (Jos., Bell. 7, 185, Ant. 6, 166ff; 211; 214; 8, 45ff) and Philo (Aet. Mund., 64; 76

See too its use in this sense by Empedocles and Xenocrates and Hippocrates (De Morbo Sacro, 1 (VI, p. 362), Euripides (Hipp., 141 ff., Posidonius and Epinomis as well as Apuleius and the Neo-Platonists (cf. Porphyry De Philosophia ex Oraculis Haurienda, III, 164 bc: τοὺς δὲ πονηροὺς δαίμονας οὐκ εἰκῆ ὑπὸ τὸν Σάραπιν ὑποπτεύομεν … ὁ αὐτὸς δὲ τῷ Πλούτωνι ὁ θεός, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο μάλιστα δαιμόνων ἄρχων) and in the Hermetic literature (cf. Corp. Herm., XVI, 10 f), and by Philostratus Vit. Ap., IV, 10, 147 f..



You speak of your researches into this word. Have they included a look at the entry on δαίμων, δαιμόνιον, δαιμονίζομαι, δαιμονιώδης, δεισιδαίμων, δεισιδαιμονία in the TDNT (especially section A: δαίμων in the Greek and Hellenistic World and the discussion of the (alleged) difference between δαίμων andδαιμόνιον in subsection 5. "Demon Terminology in the Greek and Hellenistic World as well as the notes there on the influence of Popular Religion on the Philosophical Systems of the Hellenistic world)?

(as is clear to those reading this, the answer is no)

How about the works cited by Danker in his entry on the word -- which include JGeffcken, Zwei griech. Apologeten ’07, 216ff; JTambornino, De Antiquorum Daemonismo ’09; RWünsch, D. Geisterbannung im Altertum: Festschr. Univ. Breslau ’11, 9-32; WBousset, Z. Dämonologie d. späteren Antike: ARW 18, ’15, 134-72; FAndres, Daimon: Pauly-W. Suppl. III ’18, 267-322; MPohlenz, Stoa ’49 [index].—HDuhm, D. bösen Geister im AT ’04; GABarton, Enc. of Rel. and Eth. IV ’11, 594-601; AJirku, D. Dämonen u. ihre Abwehr im AT ’12; ALods, Marti-Festschr. ’25, 181-93; HKaupel, D. Dämonen im AT ’30; Bousset, Rel.3 ’26, 331ff; Billerb. IV ’28, 501-35; TCanaan, M.D., Dämonenglaube im Lande der Bibel ’29; WFoerster, TW II 1-20.—WMAlexander, Demonic Possession in the NT ’02; JSmit, De Daemonicis in Hist. Evang. ’13; RBultmann, Gesch. d. syn. Tradition2 ’31, 223ff; HEberlein, NKZ 42, ’31, 499-509; 562-72; FFenner, D. Krankheit im NT ’30; ATitius, NBonwetsch-Festschr. ’18, 25-47; GSulzer, D. Besessenheitsheilungen Jesu ’21; HSeng, D. Heilungen Jesu in med. Beleuchtung2 ’26; WWrede, Z. Messiaserkenntnis d. Dämonen bei Mk: ZNW 5, ’04, 169-77; OBauernfeind, D. Worte d. Dämonen im Mk-Ev. ’28; AFridrichsen, Theology 21, ’31, 122-35; SVMcCasland, By the Finger of God ’51; SEitrem, Some Notes on the Demonology in the NT: Symbolae Osloenses, suppl. 12, ’50, 1-60; JKallas, The Satanward View (Paul), ’66 ff f



How about the entry DEMON Δαίμων, Δαιμόνιον in Torn, Becking, and
Horst, Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible DDD (2nd extensively rev. ed.)?

(it's pretty clear that the answer is, again, no)

Or S. Eitrem, Some Notes on the Demonology of the New Testament (Uppsala 1966); T. H. Gaster, Demon, Demonology, IDB 1 (1962) 817–824; H. B. Kuhn, The Angelology of the Non-Canonical Jewish Apocalypses, JBL 67 (1948) 217–232; *E. Langton, Essentials of Demonology: A Study of Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (London 1949); E. C. E. Owen, Δαίμων and Cognate Words, JTS 32 (1931) 133–53.

(again, donuts for dollars, the answer is no).








Horseshit. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Jeffrey

stephan huller

hee hee hee

Iskander

mice-shit

Toto

Welcome back, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey Gibson

You do realize, don't you, that Strongs is not a lexicon. It does not define words. Nor does it make any attempt to do so, let alone give one the full semantic range that a Greek or Hebrew word possessed or any insight into its use diachronically. It simply lists what the KJV translators thought was the best 1611 English equivalent of a given Hebrew or Greek term that they were translating.

Its use as a lexicon, let alone as an authoritative source for what a Greek or Hebrew word means or what semantic range it actually possessed, is widely regarded as an indication that the user is not only a rank amatuer when it comes to exegesis, but also that the user hasn't the slightest clue as to just how much of an amatuer in matters Biblical and Classical that he/she is.

Moreover, it has hardly been demonstrated that the root meaning of δαίμων IS "guardian spirit (LSJ shows that it is not), let alone -- unless one wants to engage in the etymological fallacy -- that this meaning was fixed in all Greek usage prior to and beyond the first century (or is it the 4th if it was Eusebius who wrote the Gospels?) or, most importantly, that it and its cognate δαιμόνιον were not used to bear the sense of demon/evil spirit among non Christian Greek speakers prior to the 1st (or is it the 4th?) century -- all of which has to be demonstrated if Pete's argument that Christians "subverted the terms, rather than used it with a meaning it already possessed has any chance of being valid.

But assertion is not demonstration. Note too how Pete ignores the very evidence in LSJ that shows that these words were used by non Christian Greeks long before the 1st century CE, let alone the 4th, to mean demon/evil spirit

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Two questions, Pete.

In this thread, are you assuming that there were Christians before Constantine or are you holding on to your position that there was no such thing as Christianity, let alone Christians, before the 4th century?

Second, are you stating absolutely and in no uncertain terms that there is no instance at all of a non Christian Greek speaker using the terms δαίμων and δαιμόνιον to mean "demon/evil spirit" before the "birth of Christianity" whether that was in the 1st or the 4th century?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Has he? How and where? And is his "demonstration" accurate?



What makes you think that it hasn't already been investigated and dealt with and developed into ar article for publication in an "academic department" [??](did you mean "academic journal?)?. I take it you are unaware of the entry on δαίμων, δαιμόνιονin the TDNT and the literature on the terms that is cited there?

Are you even aware what the TDNT is?

Jeffrey